


Future Imperfect

by Britpacker



Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-26
Updated: 2011-02-26
Packaged: 2018-08-15 17:01:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8064757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Britpacker/pseuds/Britpacker
Summary: Post ep 3.21 "E2".  Trip's seen the future.  Now he's got to change it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Kylie Lee, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Warp 5 Complex](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Warp_5_Complex), the software of which ceased to be maintained and created a security hazard. To make future maintenance and archive growth easier, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in August 2016. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but I may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Warp 5 Complex collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/Warp5Complex).
> 
>  **Author's notes:** Paramount's toys and profits. My personal amusement borrowing them.  
>  This is about as angsty as I can get in my writing, and as ever, it's unbeta'd. Rated for some swearing, but hey, if The King's Speech can get a PG12 in the UK...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Having seen the future, Trip decides it needs to change. But he can't do it alone...

We must have really pissed off some deity or other for these things to keep happening to us. My head is spinning; I feel sick and it's neither lack of sleep or nourishment causing the trouble this time. First that damn plasma leak, then the future Enterprise. Hell, we're only human (most of us). How much shit can we handle in a matter of days?

I'm scared. Bone-deep shit-scared, because the last few crises have made me take a long, hard look at the life of Charles Tucker the Third. How did I get into this mess?

Married to T'Pol, for cryin' out loud! Now why in God's holy name would even I do something as stupid as _that?_

Okay, I'm King Dumbass of the Dumb People sometimes, but give me a break! Married to T'Pol! Somebody, somewhere, is laughing his butt off at my expense.

Steady, Trip. You're snorting and growling in the corridors, and that's gonna get you funny looks even after the few weeks we've had around here. Better duck into the cargo hold and hide, get myself together. Because my life is screwed, and I have to figure how I'm going to straighten it out.

We had a son; me and T'Pol. Lorian. What kind of stupid name is that, when I've always known my firstborn would be Charles Tucker the Fourth? Maybe we're an unimaginative bunch, but why change a successful formula?

Married to T'Pol. Yeah, I'm repeating myself. Just trying to get the incredible notion fixed into my thick skull. Father of a son (not called Charles). Dead in an engineering accident.

Guess I'm not cut out for heroic last stands. 

Maybe she got pregnant in that timeline; maybe it was a one-nighter, still not enough to justify the term _relationship_. I'd do the decent thing, being an old-fashioned kind of guy. The future T'Pol - my widow - never said anything about how our bond developed; never said she missed her husband. Never said she loved him either, but I'm sort of glad. 'Cause I don't love her, and I know I never will.

Sure I'm fond of her. Like I am of Travis or Hoshi, or Meg Hess. The difference is, I've screwed T'Pol. Or she screwed me. Doesn't really matter which, since it ain't ever gonna happen again. But love her? Marry her?

Not in a thousand - a million - lifetimes.

I'm a fool. Hiding behind crates in a dark cargo hold running around in circles in my head. I really need to talk to someone, and I know just the man.

Thing is, he was pretty shaken up by the whole future Enterprise experience too. He pretends it don't bother him - makes out like nothing shakes that stiff upper lip - but I know him too well. 

Malcolm wouldn't tell me what happened to him in that timeline. Changed the subject as we crouched in the maintenance shaft, working like the friendly colleagues everyone thinks we are on repairs. Damn, being close enough to feel his body heat is agony now. There's such an emotional gulf between us, and I'm the one who put it there.

That's why I couldn't ever marry our Vulcan. I'm in love elsewhere. I had everything I ever wanted, and then I threw it all away.

My feet are at warp but the brain's still moored in space dock. If's he stressing and analysing, where will he be?

My first guess misses: he's taken himself out of the armoury, muttering that the bloody useless stupid phase pistols can wait. Crewman Martin's worried, and so am I. That ain't the Lieutenant Reed we know, cuss and love in equal measures. 

The gym? Nothing Malcolm likes better than pounding out his frustrations on one of the few things out here that don't strike back.

It's deserted. So he's holed up in his cabin hoping the universe ain't gonna miss him. Sorry, Malcolm, no dice. 

God, I miss him!

It's taking forever (by his standards) for him to open the door. He's pissed that anyone should disturb his moping, but as soon as he recognises me irritation vanishes under the shutters that cover those amazing eyes. "What can I do for you, Commander?" he asks.

It's a knife in the gut every time he turns that dismissive, ever-so-courteous title on me.

"Well, ah was wonderin'... you got time t' talk?"

My accent's thickening up. Always does when I'm nervous. Malcolm steps aside, inviting me in with a curt half-wave of the hand. He's too polite to refuse, but he doesn't want me anywhere near.

I can't blame him. I don't want me around much either.

"Drink?" he snaps, not bothering to raise the light level from its comfortable half-standard late-night setting. Another ominous sign, that. The rum's out on his desk, and I hope for the sake of his head in the morning that bottle wasn't full when he got off duty. The only naval tradition he really appreciates, he once told me. 

"Thanks." He turns away to slosh a stiff measure into a clean glass, pulling his fingers away from mine like he thinks I'll burn him when they meet on the cool rim. He's taken the desk chair for himself. Guess that means I'm allowed to sit on the bunk.

"So." His expression is so damn bland, like we're strangers. "What did you want to talk about?"

"Just - life." He snorts, and no wonder. Trip Tucker's getting philosophical. Just the way a man wants to spend his precious off hours. "'s been a weird few weeks," I say, slugging back my rum for the want of anything better to do.

"Weird few years," Malcolm counters, the far corner of his mouth just beginning to twitch. I raise my empty glass in salute, and instantly, the perfect host, he's refilled it. 

"I can't get my brain around that whole future Enterprise," I say. I've never been good at word-games, and he'll tie me in knots if I don't lay it plain on the line. "I mean, me marryin' _T'Pol_ , for fuck's sake! Why in Hell'd I do somethin' as dumb as that?"

He knocks back his shot in a single swallow, but he doesn't pour himself more. "Perhaps it was better than the alternative," he says, much too tight. His shoulders have come up and his lips - a tad on the thin side, but so well shaped, so gloriously sensual - are compressed into a pale line. I'm confused.

"Alternative?"

He hates it when people dumbly parrot the last word they heard. I'm expecting to be pulled on it when he drops his hostile stare, suddenly fascinated by the ends of his long, slim fingers.

"Being alone," he states.

Oh. Oh fuck.

That's what he saw in his future. Loneliness. 

"Can't agree there, Lieutenant." If he ripped out my heart and squeezed it between his hands like he's pressing that fragile glass it wouldn't hurt more than it does right now. "I'd sooner be alone than tied up in the wrong marriage."

"Easily said, Commander." Our eyes snag for a nanosecond, and I'm petrified by the sight of an anguish too strong even for him to shield. "A wife and child, or dying alone?"

Now I can't move or breathe. "Dying?" Does he know what happened to me?

"I died." That's my Malcolm; defiance in every line of him, daring anyone to challenge Fate. "Well before my fortieth birthday. Never promoted. Never married. Nobody to mourn. And no, I didn't bother checking how. Something suicidally stupid, no doubt."

"Bet it was a more deserving end than some dumb engineering accident." Jeez listen to me! Now I'm turning this into an argument about who gets the more honourable death. What are we, Klingons? Malcolm shrugs.

He's too tired to argue. That's a first, and it scares the pants off me. 

"I'd like to think I was doing my duty," he says, going all Horatio Nelson, which scares me even worse. Like there's any doubt he would be, to his last breath!

We're on a hermetically sealed starship. The temperature can't have just plummeted, Mr Chief Engineer. There's another reason than cold why my fingers are shaking too bad to hold my glass. 

Malcolm. Dead. Dying lonely and unloved. Or thinking himself unloved, which is pretty much the same thing.

And it's all my fault.

My eyes are stinging, and it's got nothing to do with the pungent spirit I've been drinking. "Mal..."

"Don't!" He shoots out the chair like someone's fired a torpedo up his ass, almost knocking it sideways as he spins away. "Just... don't."

I used it automatically, the nickname that came so easy when we were together. I haven't called him that since the week after Lizzie died. The day I told him we were over.

The day, I realise as the misery I've just seen flash across his face finally registers, I broke the heart of the only lover I've ever wanted. 

"Malcolm, I'm sorry." My arms are aching, every fingertip itching with the need to reach out, but he's barely controlling himself; I can see faint tremors running through his taut body, and his hands are clenching and releasing reflexively at his sides. He's got his back to me, staring at the wall. If only his was an exterior cabin, I'd be watching his reflection in the viewport now. It might give me something to judge his reactions by.

He snorts. "So am I, Trip. Now if you wouldn't mind, I'm over-wrought, depressed and rather hoping to get myself thoroughly rat-arsed in the next hour. Shut the door on your way out, okay?"

I can't move. My mouth's so dry I can't speak. If he were less of a mess right now, Malcolm would laugh his ass off at that.

"I think I just told you to fuck off, Commander."

He hasn't turned around. When his voice breaks on my rank, I understand why, and my pummelled heart cracks right in two.

He's crying. 

"Oh, Mal!" Leastways I've got mobility back. I want to run and grab him in my arms; crush the breath out of him while I stroke his hair, his back, his beautiful, tear-damp face and swear I'll never let anything hurt him again. 

I don;'t, because I know he could snap my spine in a second if I startled him. He's fighting to breathe steadily, and inside I know he's burning with shame that I - I of all people - am seeing him this way. I know he really wants me to leave him with what little pride he can salvage, but it ain't about to happen.

I can't leave him like this. It's all my fault and I can't stand it.

"I never wanted to hurt you." What a crass, stupid thing to say, Tucker. After six glorious months sharing our bodies, our most secret thoughts, our _lives_ , I told him the relationship was finished. Sorry, can't do this any more. We're fighting a war. No time for distractions. And I didn't mean to hurt him!

"I realise that." Oh God, I wish he'd kept his back to me. The raw agony in his normally controlled features slices my soul to ribbons. How has he hidden this all-consuming misery on duty for all these months?

"Just go, Trip," he says, glassy-eyed. Defeated. My God, the Suliban, the Xindi, even Major Hayes couldn't crush Malcolm Reed's spirit. But I have. "Please. Leave me alone."

It's a plea and it's just too much. "I'm so sorry, Mal," I begin, and now he's not the only one drenched in silent tears. "I've been the biggest jerk in history but I was so damn scared! If Lizzie could die on Earth, light years away from the nearest alien species... I was terrified I was gonna lose the best damn thing that ever happened to me..."

"So you chose to throw it away first." If he understands what I've just called him, he ain't showing it. His rich, smoky voice is flat. It's like the fire inside him has been doused by all the tears. I'm getting there, slow as I am. The fact I never saw them don't mean they haven't been shed. "Starfleet's fucking finest!"

I've never heard so many obscenities from him in a single conversation. My shoulders heave and I pretty much hiccough my "Yeah" in response. "I'm not planning on marryin' T'Pol or anyone else," I hear myself croak; at least I'm guessing it's me, 'cause the voice sure isn't one I recognise any more. "Maybe I've wasted the best chance I ever had, but I'm not the kind of guy who settles for the second-best. I..."

"Trip." Just one word; my nickname, for Chrissakes, the most familiar word I ever hear, and it breaks me. My legs have given way and I'm collapsed on the edge of his bed, shaking, sobbing, deaf to everything but the blood that's roaring in my head. It's hard enough that I've been living through hell the last few months without the guilt of understanding - _finally_ \- what torment I've put my beautiful, gentle, generous Mal through as well.

"I love you." I know that's me, moaning over and over again, the words I shouldn't have let a day - an hour - go by without telling him. "Love you, miss you, never loved anybody else like this, and oh God, Mal I'm so sorry, so damned fucking sorry. Got so scared, so twisted up darlin', ain't never marryin' no substitute 'cause none of them'll ever be you..."

I'd ramble forever if he didn't stopper my incontinent mouth with the neck of the rum bottle. Dark, potent liquor swirls my self-pitying squeaks back into the pit of my stomach where they belong, and I'm sucking greedily, welcoming oblivion like he suggested if it will dull this blinding, brain-splitting ache for a while. 

He yanks the rim from the suction of my lips, and though I can see his hand's still shaking, he has a grip of himself again. "S'pose we're both going to snuff it lonely then," he says, all mild and reasonable. Like he's accepted his fate the way he did that time he and Johnny almost got themselves hanged as genetically-altered spies. They were standing on the gallows when the Fifth Cavalry (that was me; okay, maybe I had a little help, but I _was_ there) rode in to the rescue. Like he don't figure he deserves anything better.

Knowing Malcolm the way I do, figure that's exactly what he _does_ think. 

"I'd sooner die alone than with anyone else but you." His grunt is dismissive but I hold his gaze confidently, wanting him to know it's true. "You're the best thing that ever happened to me, Malcolm Reed. I screwed up big-time and I know you can't forget that. I - I just hope you can always be my friend, because I - I..."

"I've tried to hate you." He don't sugar-coat things, Malcolm. Ask an honest question and you'd better be prepared for the unvarnished answer. His breathing hitches when I grab his wrist and pull him, urging him to sit beside me, but he doesn't wrench himself away. "Christ, I wanted to hate you! Have you any idea how it tore my guts to stand beside you in the lunch queue answering your painfully polite questions about the aft phase cannon? It took _weeks_ for us to have a conversation that didn't end in me running for my office to bawl my eyes out in peace! You told me it was over, then tried to behave as if _it_ had never been in the first place, and that.. Playing punchbag to a gang of disappointed Suliban didn't hurt as much as your dismissal, Trip. And just as I was getting accustomed to being your friend..."

He can't say it, and I won't wound him again by pretending to misunderstand. "Lizzie used to call me the biggest dumbass this side of Eternity." And that was giving me too much credit, because I doubt even on the Other Side there's anyone ever screwed up quite as royally as me. "I don't know what I was thinkin', Malcolm. Hell, I don't wanna guess what _she_ was thinkin' either, because it's pretty damned obvious she don't have that kind 'f feelings for me. She told me herself, I was an experiment in human sexuality. Now I don't know about you, but that don't sound like no basis for marriage I've ever heard."

"Your sister was a perceptive woman." The words are bitter, but I'm glad of their sting. He's as close now as he was in the maintenance shaft; I could claim those lovely lips with the smallest movement of my head. Yet he might as well be a billion kilometres away. 

"She'd have liked you." He doesn't give me a flicker in response. "And she'd have kicked my puny ass from here to the Outer Darkness and back for the grief I've caused you."

Something flashes through his eyes; it's brief, but my heart starts to beat again as it registers. It may be cynical, but it's amusement of a kind all the same.

"There've been times I was sorely tempted to do it myself."

I stand, presenting my ass. "Be mah guest, Lootenant."

"Moron."

"That's me." He hiccoughs: it's partly a laugh, partly another sob, but I'll make like I didn't hear. He gives me a quick yank that pulls me back down beside him, and I may be dreaming here, but I'm sensing some of the desperate tension might have left his drawn features. 

"I couldn't hate you, Trip," he says solemnly. Heck, he's like a little boy sometimes, determined to see a thing through even though it's scaring the shit out of him. Figure his daddy made him feel that way a lot. "I - I love you too much for that."

Love. Not loved. No past tense. He loves me.

"It took me a while to understand that you still want my friendship," he goes on. Maybe he didn't hear my gasp, or maybe he's just so focussed on making his confession he wouldn't have noticed if a shuttlepod had busted in through the bulkhead and come to rest between us. "I - I can do that, but you have to know where I stand. I love you: that's not going to change, and I thought I'd accepted it, until..."

"Until you saw a future where you'd died alone and I'd made a sham marriage with the Vulcan priestess." And I thought it had been hard for me to hear about the life of the late Charles "Trip" Tucker the Third! 

Malcolm gives one of those funny little half-shrugs; the ones that mean you're right, but he don't want to admit it. "Being alone's one thing: facing the fact it's going to stay that way seems to be another entirely."

God, I hate it when he's so stoic! "I dare say you saw that for yourself; that's why you married her."

I don't need more information on their timeline now. I can see their lives playing out as clearly as a picture on movie night. Me and T'Pol getting together for the sake of our unborn child. Malcolm drawing farther into himself, farther from the love and companionship that should surround him. Taking one desperate chance too many on some godforsaken chunk of space rock. Not caring that he's right in the firing line. Glad to see an end to the pain. 

And it would all be my fault.

"Figure we've learned a bit about time travel in the last three years." I can't let it happen. No timeline is immutable, according to Jonnyboy, and we've gotten a glimpse at one that just don't deserve to exist. Heck, maybe it doesn't any more; maybe by crossing it, we destroyed it and that Enterprise with all its memories was just erased. "It doesn't have to be that way. Not for any of us."

Most folks wouldn't notice the change, but most folks don't know Malcolm the way I do. He's wary as a deer sniffing the air for a predator's scent, and just as fragile. One wrong word, one hasty move now, and the slim chance I'm trying to grasp will shimmer out of reach faster than a body caught in the transporter's beam. 

"I love you too," I say, loud and firm. "Always did, always will. I told myself I had no right to be happy when Lizzie died, that all I had to live for was revenge against the bastards that killed her. I told myself you were..."

"A distraction. An emotional diversion you didn't want or need."

My God, was I really that brutal? I can't remember what I said or how; just the blind panic, the agony stabbing my innards as I pushed this wonderful, tolerant, compassionate soul away. Caught up in my own pain, I didn't care how much I was hurting him. 

He can never forgive me. The glassy shard of hope I reach for slips between my hands and shatters into a billion pieces, bright as the teardrops falling from my eyes. Guess I'm going to find out just how bad that awful fate the other Enterprise's Malcolm Reed suffered really was. I'm going to die alone. Unmarried. Without the solace of my soul mate's kiss.

"Trip?" His tenderness is more than I can stand. I turn from him, bury my face against his pillow and sob loud enough for them to hear me on the bridge. I don't care if they do. Right now I can't care about anything, even taking revenge against the Xindi. I've lost him.

Insistent hands pull me around. Long, steel-solid fingers dig into my underarms as he drags me like a flexible doll to sit, sagging into his shoulder with his warmth, that glorious _Malcolm_ strength seeping through me. I should be grateful he can still be my friend, but it's not enough. I want all of him; everything I had until, like the prize jackass I am, I threw it away.

"Love you," I whimper, wanting him to know he's won, even if he's too generous to see it that way. "'ll always love you, Malcolm, I know it's too late and darlin' I'm so damn sorry!"

"You still love me?"

He's not usually slow on the uptake, but I guess I've had a funny way of showing my feelings lately. "Couldn't stop if I tried."

He sits back and stares at me the way he does an especially suspicious alien (as if they're not all suspicious to our resident paranoid security type) crosses his line of fire. "Well," he says, all conversational. "This is a proper fuck-up, isn't it?"

Oh. I get it.

He's being English and _polite_ , language aside. Treating it like an old-fashioned British whine about the awful weather in the hope of convincing us both it's not so much more. 

"It doesn't need to be." Maybe I was too pessimistic: this is like being on an old-fashioned rollercoaster, because I'm starting to think there might still be a chance, but at the same time, I've gotta get this one right. He's pricklier than a gaggle of porcupines in a cactus field, and clams up tighter than a turtle's ass when he's feeling vulnerable. "I love you. You - God knows why, 'cause I've done nothin' to deserve it - still love me. Yes, it's a mess, but we can clean it up, can't we?"

His lips press together and he swallows hard, like he's forcing down the instant answer. Taking time to consider. 

Shit, I can't blame him, but I'm about to run out of air here. A guy can only hold his breath so long!

"Bastard of a choice, isn't it?" He's gnawing that lovely lower lip, somehow keeping the tone light and teasing. Sometimes I wonder if even he knows what's genuine and what's generated by that personal emotional force field he carries around.

"Live alone and miserable, crumbling inside every time I see you and knowing you're no happier than I: or try again in the certain knowledge that at any moment you might rip my heart and soul apart all over again. I - the last few months half-killed me, Trip. I'm not sure I could bear another rejection..."

Oh. My. God. 

My stoic anchor is trembling, ripping out his aching heart in front of me, and it's more than mine can stand. "Ah may be a dumbass, but ah'm not completely stupid," a voice croaks, and it's only the thickened accent that tells me it's mine. "Ah love you, Malcolm Reed. Ah don't deserve y', but - darlin', jus' gimme the chance to make you happy the way ah wanna! Ah..."

Damn, I'm choking up and his sharp features have gone all blurry from the tears that stream down my face. "Ah'll understand if you can't forgive me, Mal, and ah'll never burden y' with mah feelinâ€™s again, but... Damn, ah love y', and more'n anythin' else in the universe - ah want y' back."

I'm not sure he comprehends; Hell, my accent's so broad and my throat so thick with crying I can hardly make out the words myself. Oh fuck, he's leaning in to me, so near I can feel his breath, all warm and sweet against my face. Is he smiling? He's so damn close it's impossible to...

My brain's frozen up. He's - he's kissing me.

It's tentative, sweet and tender, his parted lips just brushing against mine, and oh God it feels so perfect I can't stop myself sighing, opening myself to the playful stroke of his wonderful tongue. Malcolm Reed is kissing me again, and I'm so ecstatically shocked I want to burst.

You know what? That's not all I want to do. My inner caveman is rearing up, bellowing at me to toss my mate back on this well-made little bed and ravish him 'til he can't think or move. Just as well I do have a more sophisticated side, because I'd be the one not moving again in a hurry if I pulled a stunt like that.

Enterprise has stopped sliding through space. Screw that, the universe itself has dissolved. There's just Malcolm, the pressure of his mouth moving over mine and the heavy, glorious force of his bodyweight shifting as he eases up into my lap. Uh-oh, now I've tried opening my eyes and the vision's getting blurry 'round the edges again. That means I'm going to pass out for lack of air, right?

Or from pure bliss. He tastes the way I remember, sweet and sharp at once, and oh, he's good at this! His eyes are glowing when he releases me, gasping just as hard as I am. I've got to lick my lips, sweep the last drop of him into my throat. "Does that mean you'll gimme a chance?" I whimper.

"Too subtle for you?" There's that lopsided smirk that flips my heart right over. His arms lock around my neck and he leans in to nuzzle my ear, sending ripples of pleasure right to my toes. "Missed you, Yank."

"Missed you more, Limey." I've not cried this much in years - not even for Lizzie - but I'm lighter than air and so damned exultant I wanna swing from the mess hall ceiling singing my sweetheart's name. 

Now _that_ would get me a one-way ticket to the nearest airlock!

He's regarding me seriously, lips compressed, eyes narrowed. Got that cute little crease between his eyebrows that appears when he's pissed off or totally bamboozled. The one I always long to kiss away.

Now's my chance. "Trip, behave!" he chortles, swatting my head away while I try to tickle the furrows away with my tongue. "We have to talk about this!"

I know he's right, and I know it's going to be painful - for both of us. But right now I don't want to talk. I want to savour the sensation of Malcolm in my arms, Malcolm's taste on my tongue, Malcolm's voice raw and wild in my ear as I drive him into lust-fuelled oblivion. 

"I know we can't go back to what we were." I wish to God we could, but I've done too much harm for that. "I've gotta earn your trust again - yes I have, and don't try denyin' it. But we can go forward, can't we? I don't want to be alone and I sure as hell ain't settling for some sterile marriage of convenience..."

He's pursing those loveable lips now, all pink and puckered and oh, so kissable. "D' you know something, Mistah Tuckah?" he purrs - yes, Malcolm is purring at me again, all wide silvery eyes and naughty smiles. "Sometimes you don't half talk too much!"

"Why you..." I'm outraged. Or I would be if he weren't clambering all over me, kissing every piece of my face he can reach while those deft, talented hands of his attack my jumpsuit's zipper. I can't believe this is about to happen, but he's so ardent, so beautifully _needy_ I know I couldn't stop it if I tried.

And why in hell would I do that?


	2. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The future is suddenly looking a whole lot brighter...

This is what _paradise_ feels like. No wonder those Klingons will face any horror to get there.

I'm aching all over with that uniquely perfect post-orgasmic burn. If there's a bone left in my body I'd need Phlox's most powerful scanner to detect it, and that's assuming it'd function through the congealing film of mingled come that's smeared all over my belly. 

He lies beside me, his hard, sinuous body pressed tight against mine. He's thinner than I remember, and I'm pierced with guilt, knowing he's neglected himself because of me, and I didn't notice. It's classic Malcolm behaviour: bury himself in work, forget to eat, double his tough exercise regime in the hope of forgetting the hurt. It don't work, but that don't stop him doing it. And then he gets thinner, losing weight he couldn't spare to begin with. I'm going to have to take care of my man, and I'm going to enjoy doing it.

Still, however much more fragile he feels than before, nothing has ever felt more _right_ than holding him, I realise, wrapping an arm around him to keep him close as he can get. God, I love these narrow bunks! 

His eyes are closed, and there's a big, dozy, happy grin on his face. It'd be like the last few months had never happened, but for the faint tension I can feel in muscles that should be loose as unset gelatine from a spectacularly intense (and explosively fast) kiss and make up session. 

"You okay there, darlin'?" I'm not sure I want to hear the answer. One heavy-lidded eye creaks open.

"Bloody terrified, actually," he concedes, and that's not a statement Lieutenant Tough-As-Teak makes often. "If we foul this up again..."

"We won't." I'm not going to deny, I'm scared too. This night has reaffirmed just how precious this man is: how vital is his presence to my continued existence. "I'm not sayin' it'll be easy, and I'm pretty sure I'll be dumb enough to make mistakes, but I love you. I'll be cut into centimetre pieces and fed to that insane bat of Phlox's before I'll break your heart again."

He pushes himself up onto one elbow, staring down at me with reproachful eyes. "That's no way to talk about the poor man's wife!"

"Malcolm!" He's outrageous. Incorrigible. And mine.

Laughing, he lets me drag him down for a sweet, loving kiss. "It's one of the nicer things I was calling Mrs Feezal while she was chasing you all over the bloody ship," he murmurs, a tad huskier than usual, when we break apart. "I love you too, by the way. Oh, so very much."

I'm just about fit to burst for joy. "Lemme stay 'til morning?"

Sharp white teeth dig into a shaky bottom lip. He nods.

And that great _pop_ sound in my ears was definitely my heart erupting from bliss. He stretches himself out over me, dragging the covers up so his head's nestled under my chin and we're both thoroughly wrapped against the "small hours" chill of the regulated cabin temperature. I used to love these last sated moments of consciousness.

They're even better, as I listen to the languid hiss of his breathing in slumber, than I remember. I let my eyes close and my mind shut down on one hell of a turbulent day, smug in my final thought.

Damn, it's good to be home!


End file.
